Email, Monday, January 5, 2015

Well its a whole new year! And it feels like it was last year that i
wrote! Whewww! Thats forever ago! (Dry humor?) this week has been a
roller coster! But so awesome! So for new years elder cottle and i got
two pizzas and two martinellies! And then we played monopoly over
FaceTime... Fun stuff, we never "won" but we quite the game, and my
companion and i were very comfortable, and the zone leaders were
catching the struggle bus, but anywho! Saturday was a día milagrísimo!
We started out day early with a lesson at 10 am, with a guy they have
only had doorstep lessons with, we got in and taught about the
restoration of the gosple of Jesus Christ i bore my testimony about
how our father in heaven loves us, and immediately i saw the spirit
touch him, in a way i could see it in his eyes, then we showed him the
restoration video, then my companion and i testified of the validity
of joseph smith, and then committed him to be baptized on the 1st of
February, he stood there shaking his head up and down, slightly dazed,
and agreed, agreed more quickly and with more confidence than i have
ever heard of before, #MiraclesForDays!

I can happily share that i know we have a loving heavenly father, and
that because he loves us, he called another prophet to usher in the
final dispensation, and that we have a prophet on the earth today! I
know Jesus Christ came to the earth to teach his gospel and to preform
the atonement, i also know and firmly believe that the only chance we
have to live together as a family, is to follow his gospel, through
faith in him, repenting of the big things as well as the small things,
being baptized by someone that holds the authority of god, then weekly
partaking of the sacrament, to renew the covenants we make at baptism,
to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to Endure to the end, this
cycle is a way of life that helps us to be truly happy, its like a
upward spiral, with every full rotation of this cycle, our hearts
begin to change and we are elevated closer to God, and Jesus Christ.
This change of heart, or true conversion is essential to returning to
Him. This is the gospel restored in its fullness and glory, along with
many other important things pertaining to the kingdom of God, was
revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith, people try their hardest to
bash, and to find fault, and to discredit his name, but we have
evidence of this, the Book of Mormon, the inspired writings of
revelations and the histories of the ancient inhabitants of the
americas, written by prophets then, it isnt written by Joseph Smith,
but he in fact translated this book of scripture from golden plates by
the power of God, and if any of you have doubts in this, i plead with
you, just to pray to know wether this is true, or a well made lie, i
have done it, over and over, i have seen this gospel change lives.
This is the one true church on the earth today, this is the same
church Christ established when he lived upon the earth! I soberly and
solemnly bare my witness of this in the name of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ, amen.

For those who have tried to tear at my faith, thank you, because of
those attacks, i have an even more firm of a testimony of what i do, i
am a servant of The Most High, a fellow vineyard worker, a messenger
of light and hope, i am blessed in my calling as a missionary, that is
why i can speak comfortably in another language that i had little to
no experience in before, in less than a year, for those that have
strived and worked so hard to bring my testimony closer to christ, i
thank you all also, i love each and every one of you, i am who i am
because of you!

Your friend, brother, and son,
Elder Daniel Buffington


Okay picture one! Hahahahaha get it? Tennis ct? Hhahahaha

Picture two and three :) we have a sleeper! Hahaha i love these guys!

Email, Monday, December 29, 2014

Well this week seemed like it dragged on forever, but it flew by, its weird.... Christmas week was amazing, singing carols on the the trains, sharing He Is The Gift, utilizing every phrase, or word in other languages that i have learned over the years to talk to people, in return they try to teach me a new phrase in their language, which is always fun! I thought it would be weird sharing The Gift after our christmas, but in actuality its easy, cause one, Spanish people celebrate three kings day, which to some is celebrated bigger than christmas, and Russians have a different calendar so they celebrate Christmas January 7 this year. And i can pick out Russians and Latinos quite easily now :) plus they are almost always on their phone, which is in their language, or they are reading a book in Cyrillic or Spanish, which makes it easier or approach them or start a conversation, which I ALWAYS kick myself for not learning Russian, i could have benefited from it :) but oh well, 

We have been seeing miracles this week, from less actives that we haven't been able to get in contact with for a while calling us out of the blue asking when church is and coming, and participating, to investors gaining permission to be baptized! 

#ILoveChristmasTime

Im still working on my secret santa, so i am sorry recipient of the secret santa! 

I love yall, thanks for the plethora of packages, 

Pictures!

Pic 1) 2.71 get off my gas prices! ;) #NYC

Pic 2) okay waking up at 4 to go to plainview for christmas concert was not on my bucket list haha

Pic 3) yes thats my companion, and yes he does have a alligator hat on, and yeah he made the face...

Email, Monday, December 15, 2014

Hey! How is everyone doing?!

The big apple is doing great! Some cool stuff is going down :) 

Okay so this week was transfer calls I'm getting yet another companion, Elder Cottle, he is in the other pool so i only have to move my stuff 20 to 30 minutes walking distance, not to shabby considering my two hour train ride bringing my stuff here, at lease i know where i will be for Christmas, so we got a sweet referral from Utah, a lady got her patriarchal blessing, felt strongly to send missionaries to her father, told the patriarch, who told his grand daughter which is a sister in our mission, who called us, and explained how the patriarch felt that we should take the plan of salvation, so we did just that, the first time we wanted to just show up, we didn't know it was a hour bus ride, this would be after after a 20 minuet train ride.  So we go out, and he wasn't home, but we talked to his son, he was super cool, so we called the second time, last night, and asked if we could come over, he agreed, so we traveled again for a good distance, and met him, super cool guy, he is a Dominican, he has a raspy voice, and needless to say we both had a hard time understanding him, we taught him about the plan of salvation, where he was super excited for his resurrected body, cause he has diabetes, and has a prosthetic leg, and he doesn't think he will live very much longer, we committed him to be baptized on the 11th of January, i think he will be ready the week before! The spirit was so strong, we promised him that he has the chance to live with his entire family forever after this life, and he loved that idea, super good lesson

Also next Sunday will be beautiful! I got permission to return to Rego to view the baptism of Olga!  She has asked if i would baptize her! 

Well i love you all, i will get to talk to some of yall next week, via Skype, 

Hope im making Yall proud! 

Your elder in the field!

Elder Daniel Buffington 

Pictures!

1)Elder Hellewell after a bad storm, his umbrella died :( 

2) okay so this is a ninja turtle! So during dinner they said somthing about a turtle that i didnt catch, so we sit down for the lesson and im looking around like, where is the box for the turtle?? They have a dog, maybe they were making fun of it, so about two minuets into the lesson something catches my eye, this little guy was chilling in the middle of the floor, all hidden in its shell, like it was the there the entire time! (I couldn't resist making the joke of how we use turtles in South Carolina to make soup)

3) only in New York do you find mobil billboards, TVs, and display cases! Hahaha

Email, Monday, December 1, 2014

Hey there!
This week has been a crazy fun week, like every other week, monday we
plaied football in preperation for turkey bowl, and met Elianny for
the first time, she is the ten year old that was taught in the area
next to us and needed to be baptized here, met the family, all
dominicans, way cool people!
Turkey bowl was Thursday, and my zone did better than my last years
team, we won the first game and lost in the next game (they ended up
getting second place, and they had a zone more than twice our size and
we could only sub out two elders and a sister) but not complaining
haha after that we ended up playing rugby, so it was fun! We ate at a
members house for thanksgiving and met and mingled with there family,
most of which are nonmembers.. But we taught this sweet less active
family Friday, (due to work) and they fed us chile rellenos which is
the stuffed chilies, oh my goodness, it was awesome, picture one is
the first one, which wasn't as pica, spicy, but the second they said
was very spicy, but is wasnt bad, but so much better, super smokey,
mmmmmmmmm then a fruit salad, but it was chopped fruit and sweeted
condenced milk, super good! Then Sunday we had church where i gave a
talk, which i found out about the night before, so it was short, but
to the point, and then we had the baptism! Super fun! I made rice
crispys which everyone loved,

But that be my week!
I love yall!
Remember who you are,
;)
Elder Daniel Buffington

Email, Monday, November 17, 2014

So i just finished my first week in my new area, Midwood Brooklyn, and
it has a different feel than queens, for one it is a lot cleaner, the
population is mainly Jewish, Russian, or Spanish, and it has been
filled with emotions and some stress.  So Monday i finished visiting
most of the families i loved, didnt get to see them all tho, queens
has a big chunk of my heart, and the majority of that piece is in
rego, Tuesday was transfer day, my new companion is elder Hellewell he
is alot like me, in some ways, but he is cool, was born in VA but
lives in UT, ummm oh! So yesterday we had a super funny story to tell,
so we are knocking this building, and we get to this door and we can
hear people talking, so we knock, wait, knock again, wait... When my
companion was about to turn away i knocked once more, finally we heard
footsteps coming to the door, the door cracked open and we was a
lady's face, her eyes got huge and she screamed and slammed the
door... O.O my companion took that as a no and was about to walk away
cause we heard the chain on the door, but she opened it again and
started talking to us, and so I apologized for startling her, then she
closed the door again! But she unchained the door and opened it up,
she was super jumpy and we told her who we were, she asked if we had
I.D.s so i showed her my ministerial certificate, and apologized again
cause it was in Portuguese, she looked at it for a while as we were
talking to her, but she let us in, apologizing for screaming, but she
was not used to having people over, she had a friend that was staying
with her so we were able to go in, they were high school friends that
kept in contact through college, super fun people, and they just asked
questions, and it was nice to have that working for us, they gave us
herbal tea cause they heard that mormons dont drink regular tea, haha
super fun, at the end she kept telling us how clam she felt that we
made her day a little better,

And we had stake conference at the Marriott center in Brooklyn, cause
the owner is LDS! So it was cool and Elder Perkins was there, of the
regular 70? I dont know, he works with the prophet and the 12 so its
cool,

All is well here :) i love yall so very much, im sorry for any wrong
doings i might have done, i pray that yall could forgive me of being a
bonehead
Elder daniel buffingon

Okay hopefully yall can see the video we heard some loud music, so we
got up on the roof and checked it out, maybe a jewish holiday? Or a
party? Idk
Super interesting tho...
Well ttyl

Email, Monday, November 10, 2014

Yesterday and today are my days to say goodbye to everyone, I
defiantly have more friends here than anywhere else, this is my home,
but its time to move again and make new friends, this week we smashed
our goals out of the water! So in a sense i am leaving with a bang,
#cameinlikeawreckingball was our hashtag for the three transfers elder
trujillo and i were together! And now on to companion 8 :)
That has been the hight of the week, we have almost 4 people lined up
for baptism with dates, and 2 other progressing investigators that
will soon have baptism dates, and about three families that we are
supposed to have in the coming week, im leaving the area in good
hands, we fliped it around, and now im off to another area, :P

Oh! This past Tuesday we had the funeral for the mother of hermana
pepin, and we sung, amd elder trujillo played his clarinet, it went
nice and smoothly, but after a couple members asked for the number of
the martinez family, cause they were all old friends, then one called
brother martinez, and talked to him for a second, then handed me the
phone and told me to say hi, so i got to talk to brother and sister
martinez, haha they told me they were just with you all at the church,
i could hardly reconize sister Martinez's voice, it was weird, but it
was good, it started in english and ended in spanish, so it was fun
haha.

I love you all, i hope what i am hoping for comes true,:) which is to
go to brooklyn for 4transfers and return to rego to finnish, this is
the true promise land.
Please be safe and stay warm, dont catch ebola, and stay true to what
you know, you all are all loved dearly, and prayed for,
Your friend
Elder buffington
Okay so there will be a few emails today, with all my familys and
friends which have pieces of my heart.

Picture 1) sister Lujan, and her son Sammy, an awesome pruvian family!

Picture 2) Olgita! You can see the little red drink, its a fruit salad
drink she makes and sells, but ALWAYS gives us a cup, she has a
special place in my heart, where she has given us food and saved us,
more than once, she gave me a jersey of ecuador so i never forget her,
(probably my hardest goodbye which will be almost be tied to the pepin
family tonight) but its okay, she might be moving to brooklyn, to a
place i can possibly go, so i pray that happens so i can keep teaching
her!

Picture 3) my first family i meet here in Rego, the family casteñeda,
a columbian and dominican family, one son is missing at work, so only
one could be in the picture, the sons are less active, but we have
been working with them, so we will see how it goes,

Email, Monday, November 3, 2014

Hello there my beautiful family! How are you all doing?! I am doing well!  This last week was another struggle. We had cancelation left and right. But yesterday one of our investigators passed on, and is being taught on the other side, she was passing from cancer, she had a good 70 years, and her daughter and her family are all members, a little less active while the grandma was in and out of the hospital, dominicans are fighters, the grandma was given 24 hours, 3 weeks ago, she didn't let that get her, i have grown to love that family, even
tho half the time i cannot understand them haha dominican slang, its like going from England, to the deeeeeeeeep south hah

So yeah life as a missionary is a new story every day, im learning so much! And we are starting week 6!! We find out our fate this Saturday, whether we are staying or leaving..

But hey look picturessss!

1) a unfiltered sunset of NY! Bam

2) costumes on halloween (At chipotle you can get a massive burrito for three dollars originally 8, if you wear a costume, so i was clark kent aka superman, and my companion was a newsie!) hahaha

3) a wholesome breakfast of crepes and nutela and bananas and whip cream, and chocolate syrup, i didn't add a scoop of ice cream